The invention relates to improvements in methods of and apparatus for manipulating labels (such as revenue stamps) prior to the application to containers of the type known as hinged-lid packets. Such containers are utilized by numerous manufacturers for the confinement of arrays of plain or filter cigarettes or other types of rod-shaped smokers' products. As a rule, the products are draped into an inner envelope of metallic or plastic foil, and the thus obtained block-shaped commodities are confined in hinged-lid packets. A filled packet is thereupon sealed as a result of confinement in a normally transparent outer envelope of cellophane or the like. It is further customary to apply a label to selected pairs of coplanar portions of the main section and the lid of a packet prior to confinement in the outer envelope.
The main section of a hinged-lid packet (which is normally made of strong paper or lightweight cardboard) comprises a bottom wall, a rear wall, a front wall and two trapezoid lateral walls. The lid includes a rear panel which is pivotally connected to the rear wall of the main section by an elongated transversely extending hinge (such as a weakened (e.g., creased) elongated straight portion of a blank which has been converted into a packet), a top panel, a front panel and two trapezoid lateral panels which are coplanar with and have sloping edges abutting the adjacent complementary sloping edges of the respective lateral walls of the main section when the lid is closed.
A first part of the label is glued to portions of the rear wall and the rear panel so that it overlies at least a portion of the hinge, and a second part of the label is glued to a portion of one lateral wall and to a portion of the respective lateral panel so that an elongated portion of the second part overlies at least a portion of each of the neighboring sloping edges on the one lateral wall and the respective lateral panel in the closed position of the lid. When a purchaser desires to gain access to the contents of a packet, such person must remove the transparent outer envelope and thereupon pivots the lid to open position. This results in partial destruction of the label because the label tears along the elongated portion which overlies the aforementioned sloping edges in the closed position of the lid.
It is desirable to weaken a label along the aforementioned elongated portion of the second part. Such weakening reduces the tensile strength of the label in the region of the elongated portion to thus ensure that the very first pivoting of the lid to open position does not necessitate the exertion of a pronounced force. Secondly, the appearance of a packet subsequent to initial pivoting of the lid to the open position is more pleasing to the eye if the second part of the label is torn along the predetermined (weakened) elongated portion.
Heretofore known proposals to weaken selected portions of the labels are not entirely satisfactory, not only because the weakening must be carried out by resorting to rather complex apparatus but also because the weakening takes up substantial amounts of time and is not always sufficiently accurate and/or pronounced to ensure predictable tearing of an applied label only in the region where the label must break in order to afford access to the contents of a packet confining a group of plain or filter cigarettes or the like.